We know that there are three factions: The Illuminati, The Dragon, and The Templars.  Each of these will have distinct designs for how they want the world to be and while it’s still unclear whether you’ll be able to group with one another for PvE content (there was some hinting that you may be able to since you’re all three fighting the same evil overall), you will most certainly be fighting against each other in some capacities.

Originally The Secret World was going to have a region located in “The Hollow Earth” where the three factions fought over a valuable resource known as “anima”.  Now though the fine folks at Funcom were quick to point out that The Hollow Earth isn’t done for, it is being reworked and won’t exist in the early incarnation we once knew it as.  Basically, if I can interpret that for us all, Funcom meant to say: “we’re not ready to show it to you yet, so bugger off for now.”

What they are ready to talk about is the Match-Made PvP.  Now, I’ve made it clear before than I’m longing for a game to have the balls DAoC did and give us three-faction warfare on a world-wide scale.  I’m sure this is something Funcom is pondering very carefully.  In the meantime, while we wait for more details, we just have to be happy with the fact that we still have three-faction PvP even if the content is set up more like Battlegrounds/Warfronts/Scenarios.

Since I’ve made it a habit with the first few of these columns, let’s continue the trend of bullet points.  Maybe I should just rename the weekly column to TSW: Bullet Points.  But I digress.  To the points!

The Pros

• Three factions is three factions.  Ups the ante on PvP mechanics, and offers a wider range of possibilities.  Especially if the design of the PvP maps is intent on highlighting this strength.
• Skill-system will promote some crazy builds.  Sure there will be flavors of the month, but by and large 500 skills should make PvP very interesting.
• Dressing anyway you like means no easy way to find the healer… and I like it that way. Sure you’ll eventually pick out the glowing person with a halo as your health supply (or something like that), but at least from the get go unless you know a certain name of a character everyone will be on equal ground going into the fight.  Again you’ll know certain folks eventually, but I love that the itemization system Funcom is going with promotes individuality.
• No levels, all skills equals lots of PvP.  If I’m reading things right, characters won’t be largely better than one another based solely on some arbitrary level system.  Instead the skills you slot into your build will determine how strong you are at different parts of the game.  No level 900s ganking a level 7.  Yes, please!

The Cons

• Match-made is not open world.  I’m sure plenty of folks prefer match-made PvP.  But not this guy.  I want meaningful pride-driven warzones in my MMO and it’s been a long time since a new game really gave us one.  I hope The Hollow Earth still makes release and is as awesome as it once was sounding.
• The Flavors of the Month… they’re going to be huge.  I know, I know.  I’ll just have to deal with it.  Really, given the 500 skills and the combinations thereof, I’ll gladly swallow the FotM pill.  But that doesn’t mean I have to like it.  They’re in every game and the free-form skill system is going to make for some rocky balancing, and we all may just have to realize it never will be balanced.

Well, that’s just the way I see it.  And I really can’t stress enough that this is all based off of what we know from Funcom’s reveals and GDC thus far.  I’m sure we’ll experience more in the next few months since there’s E3, PAX Prime, and such just around the corner (not to mention beta).  It’s going to be interesting to see how Funcom’s handling of a three-faction game goes and whether or not it will live up to my own (admittedly) massive expectations for PvP.

source from: mmorpg

Those following the game will be familiar with its premise, but for those who might not be too familiar, a brief recap is in order:

The Secret World is the next game from Age of Conan and Anarchy Online developers Funcom. The game is set in a world where secret societies, freaky human powers and evil horrors from the middle of the Earth are all very real things. Unlike its predecessor, The Secret World makes no use of levels of classes, instead attempting to provide players with a more real life-like experience that relies on the growth over time of skills and abilities.

Recently, the developers released their first small clips of gameplay footage, skewed as though viewed through surveillance cameras. The images that they showed were of zombies, and told the story of the people of a Stephen King-esque town appropriately names Kingsmouth who disappeared one day in a fog and were returned later, as the living dead.

The game, as you can see by the new trailer available today, is visually quite impressive and we learned that Kingsmouth is going to be the first location that players visit after leaving their hub cities.

The goal of the developers here is to allow players to travel all over the world to different and varied locations, fighting the first of the creatures crawling to the surface of the Earth.

“We want this to be a canvas,” said Game Director Ragnar Tornquist, and as such, the game has to be maybe a little bit more believeable as a world because it’s set in contemporary times.

Story

The developers on The Secret World are trying to bring their game’s story to the forefront, using what was described to us as deeper NPC characters, each with their own stories. These NPCs are meant to give each situation a unique personality from government agents to the local sheriff.

Each location will also have its own unique and somewhat complex story that players will experience. In Kingsmouth, for example, players will learn that it isn’t just zombies that are plaguing the town, but that the fog that took them blocks all means of escape, all the while other, more mysterious creatures are rising from the ocean.

“It’s all about digging deeper,” Tornquist told us. Every location will have a different feel, a different interlocking story with new NPCs.

Combat

We had a chance to take in some of the game’s combat while we were there and while we didn’t get a hands-on demo (they’re just not ready yet to let us get our grubby paws on the game), we did get to see some pretty extensive recorded gameplay, mostly centered around combat.

The combat that we saw was extremely action-oriented, giving the impression of twitch combat. That being said, we were flat out told that it wasn’t twitch based but is designed to move quickly, requiring players to be paying attention to what’s going on in order to execute the correct powers at the correct times. This, we are told, is going to be key.

Mechanically, combat is broken down into powers. There are two different types of power: passive powers, which augment stats or powers and are consistent, and then you have active powers, which are your classic press it and something happens kind of abilities. Throughout their careers, players will advance and collect these powers which will run the gamut of what you would expect to find in a class based MMO, from healing abilities to spellcasting-like abilities to tanking abilities. In the end, it’s up to each player to build the kind of power set that he or she wants.

While you can eventually collect them all, only seven of each type (active and passive) of power can be active at any given time meaning that players will have to make wise decisions about the powers that they have before they enter combat (choices can’t be altered in-combat).

State System

When powers are used, they will sometimes put enemies into a “state.” In these states, the enemy becomes vulnerable to special combo moves that can be activated either on your own, or with the aid of your group. It’s an interesting feature that allows a little bit more versatility in team play and should keep players actively engaged.

Other

Having seen the game in play, and talked to the developers about it a little bit, we can start to put together a number of facts about the game that don’t necessarily fit into any specific category. The first is that the game is designed to be solo-friendly, but in order to get through some of the boss encounters you really need to be able to work cooperatively with others and think strategically.

There is a lot of variety in the enemies that the players will encounter playing The Secret World. As was mentioned above, each region that players will visit is designed to be interesting and unique. While we’ve seen the zombies and some of the other creatures that currently inhabit Kingsmouth, we should expect to see different baddies in other regions. If, for example, the game takes players to Egypt, there might be a few ideas about what they might be facing there (especially given the cool mummy-like creature we saw in early trailers and art).

While in the demo, we were also told that most of the game’s missions will actually take place in the open world rather than in small instances. That being said, we were told that the developers weren’t afraid to use instances where they’re appropriate. So, you can expect at least a few of the larger boss fights, for example, to take place in smaller instances.

Guild style players won’t be disappointed by The Secret World as literature that we’ve gotten our hands on states that the game will have player made organisations called cabals. Players will be able to create and decorate their own headquarters and rank their cabals against those of other players.

Worried PvP won’t be making an appearance? Well, rest easy as Funcom has announced PvP in the form of a battle for what they call “Hollow Earth” where players fight for something called anima which is only found deep under the Earth but promises great power for its owners.

Finally, on top of the game’s three player factions (Illuminati, Templars and Dragon), there will also be a number of NPC factions, which promises to make unravelling the game’s story that much more interesting.

Source:mmorpg.com